Bishop to join Street Pastors on city streets

The Bishop of Sherwood will be experiencing Nottingham’s nightlife this weekend, when he joins with a group of Street Pastors out in the city on Saturday night ( 26th February 2011).

The Rt Revd Tony Porter will meet up with the team on their normal night patrols around the city centre, where they walk around from about 10pm to 3am helping people in need of support or just providing a listening ear.

Bishop Tony said: “I’m looking forward to being part of the team and showing God’s love in action. I’m sure it will be a great insight into the work that goes on each weekend and will help me to see how the churches can better support this pioneering project.”

Street Pastors were launched last March under the leadership of Jo Cox-Brown the business and project manager of the Malt Cross Trust on St James's Street.  The Malt Cross is a cafe bar project backed by a whole range of Christian churches, The Nottingham University Chaplaincy and St John's Theological College and is also now the home of the Nottingham Street Pastor project. The project currently represents 17 different churches and is supported by the Night Time economy team, the City centre management, local businesses, publicans, the Crime and Drugs Partnership as well as Nottinghamshire Police and Nottingham City Council.

Street Pastors offer help to people in all kinds of situations, whether it is sitting with someone who has had too much to drink, helping someone get home safely, or even supporting people following a violent crime. Working with the police and nightime businesses, they are becoming a familiar sight for both partygoers and workers and have helped over 1500 people get home safely since March 2010. All the Street Pastors are volunteers from local churches who offer their services freely with the aim of showing practical care for others.

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